WB Loan for Eastern Freight Corridor

Dedicated Freight Corridor is one project that can dramatically change industrial face of India and NCR region in particular. There is a positive news flow on Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor as the World bank has issued Rs 10,800 crores loan for corridor. The corridor runs from Ludhiana to Bihar (to be extended to Kolkata) with a total length of 1280 km. Dadri would be the junction of Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor. The more popular and dynamic Delhi-Mumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor would be 1483 km long between Dadri and Mumbai.

The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project is a State-Sponsored Industrial Development Project of the Government of India. It is an ambitious project aimed at developing an Industrial Zone spanning across six states in India. The project will see major expansion of Infrastructure and Industry – including industrial clusters and rail, road, port, air connectivity – in the states along the route of the Corridor.The ambitious Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) has received major boost with India and Japan inking an agreement to set up a project development fund.The initial size of the Fund will be 1,000 crore (US$ 221 million). Both the Japanese and Indian governments contribute equally.

The corridor would include six mega investment regions of 200 square kilometers each and will run through seven states Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh, Southern Haryana, Eastern Rajasthan, Eastern Gujarat, Western Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh – Indore.

Conceived as a global manufacturing and trading hub, the project is expected to double employment potential, triple industrial output and quadruple exports from the region in five years. The total employment to be generated from the project is 3 million, the bulk of which will be in the manufacturing/processing sectors.

The ambitious project will be funded through private-public partnership and foreign investment. Japan will be a major investor for this project. The corridor will span 1483 km.

It will include a 4000 MW power plant, three seaports and six airports in addition to connectivity with the existing ports. The industrial corridor project will be implemented by the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation, an autonomous body comprising of government and the private sector.

It will be implemented through special purpose vehicles [SPVs]. The project is expected to deliver a 2-3-4-5 benefit: to double employment (2), triple industrial output (3) and quadruple exports (4) from the region in five years (5). It will built along a dedicated rail freight corridor, and once commissioned, will reduce the Delhi-Mumbai transit time from 60 to 36 hours.